


Hermann Gottlieb's Stacker Pentecost Obsession Trapper Keeper

by what_alchemy



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Chuck is the biggest asshole of a matchmaker ever, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-13
Updated: 2013-10-13
Packaged: 2017-12-29 07:41:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1002756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/what_alchemy/pseuds/what_alchemy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermann has a giant man crush on Stacker.</p><p>Newt finds it delightful. Herc, not so much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Newt Geiszler did not snoop.

 

He occasionally, once in a while, very rarely… came into information that was not, strictly speaking, for his specific eyes.

 

For example, on this particular occasion, Hermann was still sleeping the sleep of the curmudgeonly and Newt was _awake as fuck, man_ , and he needed to check some things on the PPDC intranet but hadn’t brought his own tablet because Hermann had a distracting mouth. So whatever, sue him, he fired up Hermann’s tablet and went to town.

 

He checked the latest DNA sequencing for Knifehead — just like Yamarachi, actually, and there had to be something wrong there, he had to run it all again, but that could wait til human hours. He also checked the totally DL wagers forum. He had twenty thousand yen on a couple of the new Jaeger engineers actually brawling instead of fucking, and forty-five hundred Philippine pesos on the new ultra-conservative Prime Minister of Australia being a huge closet case. Odds were not in his favor on either, but that, in Newt’s opinion, was the only way to play. Long odds and big wins. 

 

So he was just checking his own shit, right, when maybe his stylus innocently swiped across a folder marked “private,” and he couldn’t help being literate, no one could possibly blame him for that. So if he read through said folder, just for a second, not even on purpose, it totally wasn’t his fault. 

 

It was the code for the Mark I Jaegers. With minimal scrolling, Newt could see that it was the code to Coyote Tango in particular — the Jaeger Stacker Pentecost himself had piloted alone when Onibaba got Tokyo five years ago. 

 

Why was that marked “private?”

 

Hermann himself had done up the code, of course. He was the whole reason the PPDC had Jaegers at all, which _obvs_ gave Newt half a boner just to think about, but that was beside the point. The point was that the code for Coyote Tango — the code for all the Mark I Jaegers, in fact — was a matter of public record. Newt would put a healthy amount of Peruvian Neuvo Sol banknotes on each Jaeger having its own folder in this tablet — not that he’d look, he wasn’t like that — and none of them being on some weird lock down.

 

And maybe Newt did a little check, no harm done, nothing invasive. And maybe Newt saw that Hermann had last accessed Coyote Tango’s code just that morning, but the other files were gathering the proverbial dust. And maybe Newt looked at all that lovely code again and maybe it made the corners of his mouth very, very curly.

 

Maybe.

 

—

 

Newt was up to his ass in kaiju lung when the constant _clack clack clack_ **screech** _clack_ of Hermann thinking _super crazy loudly on his goddamn blackboard holy shit_ stopped.

 

“What?” Newt said. “What’s that I hear? Is it… my own thoughts?”

 

“Oh, shut up,” Hermann snapped. Newt glanced over his shoulder to Hermann’s side of the room and found him fussing with his sweater vest and worrying at his cane. 

 

“Is it that time already?”

 

Hermann looked up from his nonexistent task to furrow a brow at him.

 

“To what time are you referring, Dr. Geiszler?”

 

Newt rolled his eyes. During work hours, which was damn near always, _ugh_ , Hermann called him by title and surname only and would not budge about it. Said it helped him “demarcate and compartmentalize the disparate modes of our relationship,” and wouldn’t hear a word of Newt’s, “but _Hermie_ I’m Newt whether I’m swimming in kaiju stomach acid or blowing you into kingdom come.” But Hermann wouldn’t call him Newt ever anyway. He was _Newton_ in their downtime, like all his dignity lived in that stupid second syllable or something. Drove him nuts, for real. So as far as Newt was concerned, it was only fair to drive Hermann nuts in return. He was going to deploy “kani” as a nickname soon, trial run. Because Hermann, hermit, hermit crab, crabby motherfucker, stick in the mud, crabsticks, kani, see? It was good because it functioned on multiple levels, that was the mark of an effective joke, Newt knew how these things worked. Newt had a whole list of possible things to call him; kept it in a battered Moleskine with a naked lady on the cover so Hermann wouldn’t look. Took it out and worked on it every day. And the look on Hermann’s face when it came out always inspired more names for the list.

 

“ _Dr. Geiszler._ ” Oh, Hermann was _exasperated_ , how tedious, how predictable, how unlikely to result in a supply closet orgasm at lunch time.

 

“Pentecost’s check-in,” Newt said. “Shit. Is it Thursday already? Herms, what did we even _do_ the last two days?”

 

“Stop calling me that. And I believe you’ve been dissecting lungs past the point of sleep deprivation-induced hallucination. I, for one, have been doing something _useful_.” 

 

“Oh, like what, treating the black lung you must have from all the chalk dust you inhale?”

 

“There are so many logical fallacies in that sentence, I don’t know where to begin.”

 

Newt flicked some tissue over the line between their halves of the lab just in time for Marshall Pentecost and Herc Hansen to appear in the doorway and send Hermann into veritable paroxysms. By which Newt meant that Hermann was stiffer than usual, shoulders hitched up, ears flaming red, mouth pursed flat and firm. He was practically having a _fit_ , if you knew how to look. And Newt definitely did. He was going to get his 7th PhD in Dr. Hermann Gottlieb Tells. He already had the first fifty pages of a dissertation.  

 

“Really, Geiszler?” Hansen said, and made a disappointed face at him. 

 

“Justified,” Newt said, and pointed at Hermann’s head because for real that haircut explained _everything_. He and Hansen turned their attention in tandem to the mathematics side of the room and found Hermann deep in discussion with the Marshall. And, to Newt’s eye, profoundly conflicted about whether to salute him or fling himself at his feet and throw his arms around his knees. 

 

Newt had to smother the rising cackle, because he was loud when he laughed or, whatever, _existed_ , he couldn’t help it, and it would snap Hermann out of the big old hearts-in-eyes expression he had going on right now. Newt groped for his phone only to spy it three tables away. 

 

“Shit,” he whispered, very very quietly. “You got a camera on your phone?” 

 

That was when Newt noticed Hansen’s abject horror. He was staring all open-mouthed and furrowed-brow as Hermann yakked and Pentecost nodded all handsomely and thoughtfully and sexily. Whatever, Newt wasn’t dead. The man was a sex beast. And he always, always listened to Hermann, and gave him due praise, and just generally treated the entire K-Science crew the same as any of his Jaeger pilots. That kind of thing went a long way, especially for Hermann. Newt got the appeal, he really did. It didn’t bother him. He just wanted photographic evidence.

 

But Hansen was having some kind of quiet meltdown about it, and Newt definitely didn’t get that. 

 

“What’s up, Hansen?” he said, knocking Hansen’s elbow with his own. He had to kind of bounce up on his toes to get there, but whatever nobody could prove that.

 

Hansen startled and looked at him like he wasn’t a creature in is natural habitat, like Hansen wasn’t the one encroaching on his territory right now.

 

“That’s new,” he said.

 

Newt snorted.

 

“Is that… are they—” Hansen cleared his throat. 

 

Newt did laugh then, a big old honking guffaw that bounced between the walls of the lab without his volition, and sure enough, Hermann paused long enough to scowl at him. Newt stuck the tip of his tongue out, Hermann rolled his eyes, Pentecost leaned in like nothing had happened, and the conversation started again. Hansen looked like a particularly struggling _Poecilia reticulata_.

 

“Naw, dude,” Newt said. “Hermann just _wishes_.” He slapped Hansen on the back hard enough to make him stumble and look at him with new eyes. “But you don’t have a problem with that, do you my man?”

 

“No, of course not,” Hansen said, too quick. 

 

“Whatever, dude.”

 

He palmed Hansen’s phone off him, snapped a photo, and tossed it back into his hands. Hansen’s continued impression of a threatened rodent — frozen and big-eyed — wasn’t really inspiring.

 

“Send that to me, yeah?” Newt said, and turned back to the slab of lung on his table. If Hansen wasn’t going to be a titillating conversationalist, then Newt had better shit to do.

 

Like plan exactly what he was going to do with that photo.

 

— 

 

Newt decided to make a study of it. He was a scientist and shit. In his naked lady notebook, he now had graphs and pie charts and everything was color coded. 

 

It was nothing _obvious_. Nothing anyone else would notice, other than the apparently easily scandalized Herc Hansen. Which was good because if anyone else noticed and Hermann found out he would die in a puddle of beige humiliation and then who would Newt snuggle in the night? It was just the little things: Hermann’s eyes tracking Pentecost whenever they happened to be in the same room but pointedly not looking straight at him unless he were speaking to Hermann specifically. Hermann standing a little bit straighter when he was around. Hermann going just a touch pink in the face if Pentecost told him he was doing good work. 

 

Newt thought it was _adorable_.

 

And _hilarious_.

 

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to torment Hermann about it forever and ever amen.  

 

—

 

Shatterdomes had a serious lack of glitter. Like not even people with kids had any, _fucking rationing_ , and also _fucking lack of whimsicality_ , so Newt was reduced to cutting aluminum foil into the tiniest little pieces of makeshift glitter ever known to mankind. He also had to improvise on the pink paper he was gonna use to cut little shapes out of, which was why his pink Sharpie was dead now, and also why he was maybe slightly just a little bit high. 

 

But anyway, he was in the process of painstakingly supergluing his homemade glitter to the edges of the photograph when Hermann arrived totally unexpectedly and _without even knocking dude_ and Newt shoved all his crap into a desk drawer in a flurry of shiny debris.

 

“Goddamnit Hermann!”

 

Hermann gaped at him like a ruffled parrot. If he had pearls to clutch, he’d be wringing his own neck.

 

“What are you _doing_ , Dr. Geiszler?”

 

“A personal project, _Dr. Gottlieb_ , now what do you want?”

 

Hermann scowled at him, and Hermann had a very particular scowl because one half of his mouth definitely went down lower than the other half and his forehead got all lined and he tipped his chin up all sharp and frankly it was really fuckin’ cute but Newt could never let on that he thought it was cute because Hermann had such _fits_ to throw if he thought you weren’t taking him seriously and his scowls were really serious business, okay? So Newt harnessed all his supremely agile mental energies into scowling back.

 

Through the facial acrobatics, Hermann somehow managed to say, “I had wanted to see if _my partner_ wished to take supper with me, but I can see where I’m not wanted.”

 

Now, Newt had a choice to make. He could do the thing his body wanted, what seemed natural right now, which was to spring out of his chair and plaster itself to Hermann’s whipcord body and mumble a jocular “baby don’t be that way,” which was a joke which was what jocular meant but it wouldn’t be a joke _really,_ or.

 

Or he could take this golden opportunity to make Hermann squirm a bit. And really, what kind of choice was that?  

 

So he sniffed and spun in his chair to face his desk again. He hunched in on himself and made a great show of cleaning up bits of foil and paper.

 

“Is that what I am, Dr. Gottlieb? Your partner?”

 

There was a strangled sort of scoffing sound from Hermann’s general direction.

 

“What the hell is that supposed to mean? Newton. Look at me, for God’s sake. You’re like a petulant child.”

 

Newt just let himself sag into the desk as if under a terrible weight. Like 220 pounds of handsome, muscle-bound Marshall with so much soul coming out of his eyes he must have made a deal with someone unsavory. And maybe Newt made a pitiful noise to go along with his epic flop. Believability was in the small things. Maybe stage performance would be his 8th PhD.

 

He heard Hermann’s stumping gait and the thump of the cane as he made his way over to Newt’s desk. But, instead of being berated in RP, he felt spindly fingers stroke through his hair and the cool pad of Hermann’s thumb pass over his temple.

 

“Is it a migraine?” Hermann asked softly. _MEE_ -grain, he pronounced it, and it always kind of made Newt laugh, so he huffed into his arms as a disguise and then it sounded like sob just a little and that wasn’t Newt’s fault, and it wasn’t Newt’s fault when Hermann’s touch turned more tender than it already was, cupping the back of his skull like a delicate egg. “I’ll get you your prescription.” 

 

Okay, so now Newt felt a bit bad about the whole thing. Hermann _cared_ so much, underneath the sneering and the sniffing and the eye rolls so expansive they affected the earth’s rotation. He cared about math and little coastal babies in danger of being crushed by kaiju and the fate of the earth and how many minutes Newt liked his tea steeped and if Newt had eaten today and what Newt thought about the latest formulae and just — _Newt_. Newt didn’t get that, dude, he really didn’t. People usually didn’t stick around even to have a conversation with him because he was _grating_ and _difficult to be around_ and _exhausting_ , apparently, whatever, but here Hermann was, four years into this thing, and he still came home to Newt every night kinda frigging happy to see him. That shit was priceless.  

 

So his brain was going “Abort! Abort!” and Newt twisted under Hermann’s hand to nuzzle his face into the palm and say, “No migraine, chill out.”  

 

A put-upon little sigh, and when Newt cracked his eyes open he found Hermann staring down at him, haloed by the overhead light and trying to disguise his concern with a frown but mostly it didn’t work because, you know, 7th PhD.

 

“Hey, buttercup angel-pie. I _love_ you.”

 

“What’s got into you, Newton? Are — are you _high_?” And what a _fucker_ , looking at him like someone’s maiden aunt, like he didn’t roll the best joints this side of the prime meridian, like he didn’t have a habit of doing a shotgun from Newt’s mouth and rubbing off on him with a smile on his face.

 

“No!” Newt said, too loud. “Only a little, and because this place has shitty ventilation, and it’s not my fault.”

 

“Oh, and just who is at fault for your huffing permanent marker for God knows how long?”

 

“Yours!”

 

“Oh, of course, everything’s my fault, how could I forget?” Hermann took his hands away and stepped back to give Newt the full “irritated Oxbridge man” experience. “Pray tell, Dr. Geiszler, how in the world could I be at fault for your current inebriation?”

 

“Because you want to make out with Stacker Pentecost’s perfect face!”

 

Hermann stiffened and his face drained of color and this was what Newt called a tactical error because he’d aborted the mission but somehow made it all so much worse because sometimes his brain didn’t have a filter and he wasn’t very good at being sneaky in the long term and apparently he’d used it all up gathering data for his naked lady notebook and he had to sit up, he had to try to blink away the fuzzy haze of Sharpie because Hermann looked haggard, Hermann looked about twenty years older than he really was and that, _that_ was Newt’s fault, he did that, him, _him,_ Newt goddamn dumbass Geiszler, world-class asshole for real.

 

“Newton, I… I never meant…”

 

“Hey dude, no— it’s cool, I didn’t—”

 

“No. No, please. Allow me to explain myself.” 

 

“Hermann, man, this isn’t—” But Hermann was already talking and he’d pulled up a chair so he could do it while their eyes were level and he was close that Newt could feel his body heat, and he’d grabbed Newt’s hand in his, which was clammy, and _ah hell_.

 

“— nothing, with Pentecost, a passing fancy I got when I was reviewing the code one day, like a, a celebrity one might post on one’s wall as a teenager, which I never did of course, but that’s no excuse, I offer no excuses. It’s completely ridiculous, Newton, not at all in the realm of reality, and not something I would want besides. I never meant for you to find out or feel — overlooked, or slighted, or inadequate, or anything like that. I am — Newton, I am yours, utterly and devotedly, and I have been since the first day you called me one of your bloody pet names, you horrible, darling man, I swear to you. I swear to you. This nonsense stops now.” 

 

Newt could feel his face doing a thing, a thing where it was maybe all soppy and trembly looking into Hermann’s face, which was also doing a thing where it was all big-eyed and imploring, and he gripped Hermann’s hand tighter in both of his and he said, “Dude, I know. We do this you-and-me thing every day. It’s real.”

 

“Yes.” Hermann swallowed, and looked generally like a waterlogged cat. He scooted closer and tugged free of Newt’s hands to cup his own around Newt’s jaw. Newt closed the distance between them by butting his forehead up against Hermann’s and rubbing their noses together. He was totally into Hermann’s nose because it was like a tiny triangle and triangles are the world’s most perfect shape, so. 

 

So Newt pulled Hermann from his chair into Newt’s lap and Hermann made a squawking sound but he didn’t protest like he usually would, just steadied himself with an arm around Newt’s neck, and tried to look less put-upon than he usually did when faced with Newt’s antics.

 

“Is this okay?” Newt asked, rubbing Hermann’s trouble hip. Hermann just nodded and sort of… _melted_ into Newt. Hermann liked to pretend he wasn’t snuggly but secretly he totally was. He closed his eyes. 

 

“I’m sorry,” he said, voice small. 

 

“Dude. Listen. I’m not mad, or jealous, or whatever. I promise.”

 

“I’ve been so — so juvenile, Newton, I can hardly believe it of myself.”

 

“You know it’s natural, right? You have eyes, you look at other people, because people are hot sometimes. It doesn’t mean anything.”

 

“I would never betray you.”

 

“I know that. Okay? I know that. I’m not upset, Hermann.”

 

“You indulged in histrionics all over your desk about it! And for God’s sake what _is_ all this?” He flung out a hand, which Newt took to indicate his totally awesome glitter and pink paper slivers. 

 

Newt groaned and thumped his head on Hermann’s sharp-ass collar bone and kind of regretted it but it made them a little unwieldy so Hermann clutched at his back to get steady and Newt couldn’t really regret that so it was okay.

 

“I was trying not to get caught.”

 

That earned him a pause and the half-mast eyes and flat-lipped mouth of consternation. Newt sighed. He reached around Hermann’s body to pull out his desk drawer and reveal the photo of Hermann and Pentecost, only half be-glittered, only slightly be-hearted. Hermann took it carefully in hand.

 

“Newton.”

 

“I wanted to contribute to your Stacker Pentecost Obsession Trapper Keeper. I tried to get an honest-to-fuck Trapper Keeper circa 1998, but rationing keeps ruining my life dude, you don’t even know.”

 

“What is wrong with you.”

 

“I mean, do you want a list, or like, a doctor’s note or something?”

 

“Newton.”

 

“It’s not finished, you didn’t let me finish it, I could make it really good.”

 

“Newton. _Christ_.”

 

“I had one too! Katee Sackhoff, dude. Nothing to be embarrassed about.”

 

“You — you ridiculous, preposterous man.”

 

“Hey, do you want to finish it with me?”

 

“Newton. You were mocking me.” He heaved a big sigh, and Newt hugged him around the waist tighter because he was totally into him but also so he couldn’t run away.

 

“No, no, no, Herms, oat cluster, butt-snail, sun-in-the-sky. I just… I like it when you’re human, like the rest of us. I thought it was sweet. But, fuck dude, you know me. I fuck up when I try to show you I like you.”

 

Hermann laid the photo aside and linked his hands together behind Newt’s neck. He fixed Newt with a shrewd, considering look.

 

“Whatever shall I do with you, Dr. Geiszler?”

 

“Um, you could totally sex me up right now if you wanted, I mean, just as a suggestion.”

 

“No, I don’t think I shall.”

 

Newt pouted. “How about if I pretended to be Stacker Pentecost? I could, right? Like I could make my voice all deep **_like this_** and I could totally do an accent _like this_ , and maybe I could manhandle you a little like—”

 

“Stop, stop, Newton, my testicles have receded back into my body in horror.” 

 

Newt goggled at Hermann’s crotch and Hermann made a weird screechy sound and maybe tickled him a little and then _Newt_ made a screechy sound and maybe slid Hermann onto his desk and got all sorts of foil and paper in his hair and whatever, the point was, they sexed each other right there on Newt’s desk and it was a lot of fun and they laughed loads the end.

 

Later, Hermann let Newt finish his picture, and they pinned it to Newt’s cork board where he could look at it and laugh and laugh and masturbate a little and laugh. 


	2. Chapter 2

Chuck ate like a ravening hyena.

 

Herc didn’t know where he got it. It certainly wasn’t how he was raised. Herc had tried to raise a gentleman, but sitting across from him in the mess while he shoveled food into his face at the speed of sound and kept trying to talk through the entire revolting display, Herc had to admit defeat. Somewhere along the line, he’d failed.

 

“For God’s sake, son, try not to talk with your mouth full.”

 

Chuck paused just long enough to gain a furrow in his brow. He chewed up what was in his mouth hastily and swallowed.

 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t know we were in the Queen’s dining hall.” He swept a hand out as if revealing the drab concrete mess to him. “I must have missed her amid all the finery.”

 

Herc sighed and wondered what it would have been like to let dingoes carry his boy off when he was a toddler. He’d fantasized about that when Chuck took out one of his knees for the twelfth time playing a game he called “cannon ball” at age three. But, damn him, Herc was a sentimental man.

 

He saw Chuck’s eyes flick up a moment before a warm weight settled on his shoulder.

 

“Ready to do our rounds, Ranger?” came Stacker’s gruff voice. Herc twisted a bit to smile up at him. The fluorescent lighting backlit him like an angel.

 

“Absolutely, Marshall,” Herc said. He slid down the bench and stood. He tapped his tray and said to Chuck, “Take care of this for me, yeah?”

 

Chuck smirked, and just what did that filthy look mean? He hadn’t gotten that from Herc either. What were the options here? Milkman? Strike that, his dead wife was a saint forever and ever amen. Switched at birth? No, he looked just like Angela’s stuffy accountant brother. Changeling? Yes. Yes. Definitely a changeling.

 

“Sure thing, _Ranger_ ,” Chuck said, looking wicked. Herc suppressed the sigh this time and matched his stride to Stacker’s out of the mess. 

 

“I don’t understand that boy,” Herc muttered. Stacker kept a quick pace, but Herc could feel the sidelong glance he gave him for a moment.

 

“You know my thoughts on that subject,” Stacker said.

 

Herc clenched his jaw. “And you know mine, mate,” he said. “He’s my son and I love the bloody punter, but that doesn’t mean I don’t see him clearly.”

 

“We need pilots, Herc.”

 

“And he can barely get through an actual handshake without chewing someone’s fingers off, how do you think one that takes place in my brain will go?”

 

“I think you might be surprised.”

 

It was the same argument the two of them had been having since Chuck had turned eighteen earlier this year. It was curious: for all that Stacker seemed to dislike Chuck — and Herc could hardly blame him for that — he _believed_ in him in a way Herc just couldn’t. Herc didn’t know how to reconcile the disparity. 

 

The rest of the walk to K-Science was spent in silence, and just as they arrived, Herc had to duck out of the arc of oncoming kaiju bits, lobbed from one resident of the lab to another. Stacker, of course, stepped gracefully out of the line of fire with nary a pause.

 

“Really, Geiszler?” Herc said. 

 

“Justified,” Geiszler said with a careless wave of his hand. 

 

Herc turned to Stacker so they could share a look, but he found him already a ways away, talking to Gottlieb. And that was normal, expected, even, but Herc saw something new and decidedly alarming.

 

Gottlieb was _leaning in_ to speak to him in low, intimate tones, and Stacker… Stacker was smiling. He never smiled. All right, so it was more like he was not frowning, and his eyes had taken on that soft quality he sometimes had when he was relaxed and passed for happy, and there were contented lines around his eyes, and there was just a lot of eye contact going on over there. Gottlieb himself looked about fit to bursting, and Herc was sure he’d never seen such an expression on him before. He thought of Gottlieb as particularly dour and drab, and wondered, idly, how someone like Geiszler, who functioned at 11 on all scales at all times, could bear to share lab space with someone like Gottlieb.

 

Funny, how he’d never really considered that he didn’t know anything about Gottlieb, not really. And maybe, despite everything, despite their shared meals and quiet company and long conversations, he didn’t know Stacker, either. Herc felt like something inside him had cracked.

 

He was poked out of his doomed thoughts by Geiszler whispering at him. He didn’t know Geiszler was even capable of whispering. 

 

“Shit. You got a camera on your phone?”

 

Herc blinked as if the picture of Stacker and Gottlieb all up close like that could be removed from the backs of his retinas. 

 

“What’s up, Hansen?” Geiszler bumped him with an elbow. Herc twitched.

 

“That’s new,” he said, jerking his chin at the display across the tape on the floor. Geiszler only made a bizarre sound at him. “Is that…are they—” Herc tried a polite cough in place of actually articulating himself. It had pretty much worked for his entire life.

 

Now Geiszler laughed, one of his great ugly constipated equine laughs and _Jesus_ maybe Herc should have felt sorry for Gottlieb all this time instead of the other way around. 

 

“Naw, dude,” Geiszler said. “Hermann just _wishes_.” And now Geiszler bloody well smacked him on the back so hard Herc lost his footing. He glared at him. “But you don’t have a problem with that, do you my man?”

 

“No, of course not,” Herc said. By which he meant _yes I bloody do this is ruining my life are you insane._

 

“Whatever, dude,” Geiszler said with a scoff. He stole Herc’s phone from a part of his body he didn’t really want anyone but Stacker touching, took a picture with it, then tossed it back at him. “Send that to me, yeah?” With that, Geiszler went back to his prodding of whatever the hell was on his table, and Herc just felt staticky and far away.

 

Herc was sure he was meant to speak with him about his progress, but he wasn’t certain he was up to listening to the jargon and the high science talk right now. He looked back at Stacker and Gottlieb, who each looked at the other like he hung the moon.

 

No. No, Herc wasn’t up to enduring the scrape of Geiszler’s voice in his ears. Not today.

 

—

 

Once he’d noticed Gottlieb and Stacker’s particular esteem for one another, it was as if sunlight had flooded all the corners of Herc’s life to illuminate every interaction Herc ever witnessed between the two of them. All he saw were the little off-regulation salutes Gottlieb threw, Stacker’s kindly eye-smiles, the bounce in Gottlieb’s step when Stacker came near, the warmth in Stacker’s voice when he and Gottlieb spoke. The Shatterdome became a veritable hotbox of lusty brown cow eyes everywhere Herc went. 

 

Worst was the persistent thought that of course Herc couldn’t compete. Herc had never been in the race. The laughable idea that he’d been the only contestant had been a delusion he’d cooked up in his solitude. Any charge he felt between himself and Stacker had been one-sided.

 

Because if Stacker was into genius blokes who studied the Breach and pioneered the first Jaegers, then how could he ever look twice at Herc, who was nothing but a lunk who piloted someone else’s machine? When he even had a partner, which he hadn’t in a good few years. He was not what the techies in LOCCENT called a _Universal Drifter_. Which, of course, Stacker was. Stacker and Gottlieb — they were exceptional men. They deserved each other.

 

No, there was no competition. And there shouldn’t be. If his affections were true — and Herc liked to imagine they were — then Stacker’s happiness was more important to him than his own. Stacker’s happiness would make Herc happy. 

 

Someone flicked his nose.

 

Herc startled backward and his vision snapped back into focus. There was Chuck, face full of food and looking like the world’s least adorable hamster.

 

“Where do you go, old man?” he said, words garbled. 

 

Herc sighed. “I’m second in command,” he said, and glared when Chuck snorted. “I have lots to think about it.”

 

“Yeah, like acquisition forms and complaint forms and transfer forms. Oh, and customs forms, can’t forget those.”

 

Herc slammed his utensils down on the table and a hush settled over the mess. “Would you like to do my job?” he said. Chuck’s mouth closed just in time to save the reconstituted potato inside from plopping out. “Would you like to make sure this place runs properly and everyone’s reasonably happy and we have everything we need in working order to beat the next kaiju that rises up out of the goddamn ocean to wipe out everything it can see? Would you like to be the one paying for that food right now, Chuck? How about the clothes on your back, are those worth anything to you?”

 

The mess was silent, and Chuck held Herc’s gaze. He chewed, and he swallowed.

 

“At least let me try to do my part,” he said quietly. “Lucky Seven’s ready for us, Dad. You’re the only thing holding us back right now.”

 

And suddenly Herc was tired. He was tired of this constant game of tug o’ war he was playing with his _impossible_ son, he was tired of  playing the administrator, he was tired of sitting around hoping, hoping Stacker would make a move so he wouldn’t have to. He was tired of the kaiju, and doubly tired of standing idly by while the kaiju did their damnedest to wipe out his species.  

 

He stood. 

 

“Fine,” he said. “Suit up.”

 

—

 

Herc hadn’t been in Lucky Seven since the injury and subsequent death of his co-pilot, Rex Mahiki. The Jaeger was repaired and had sat, gleaming, in wait for his return. But Herc hadn’t found anyone he could Drift with, and Chuck needed so much supervision, and Stacker had needed him as his right hand, and so the years had passed. He had even stopped visiting her in her bay because it was too bitter. But there she was: shining and buffed, upgrades here and there. It made him remember the intimacy, the immediacy, the viscerality of his connection to Rex. Connecting to someone like that — there was nothing like it. It made you less lonely. It made you compassionate. It forced you to look at yourself and realize that someone could see all of that and still be on your side. It was humbling. 

 

Chuck came up beside him in his Drivesuit and tipped his head up, taking in the immense majesty that was Herc’s girl.

 

“Hello, gorgeous,” he said. Herc shook his head, but he was smiling. 

 

“Let’s go,” he said. 

 

Inside the Conn-Pod, he tried to help Chuck get situated with the PONS, only to find Chuck in it and at ease before he could even help. Chuck met his eyes and gave him a wry smile.

 

“Been waiting a long time for you to come around, old man.” 

 

Chuck looked like his mother when he smiled and meant it.

 

“Well,” Herc said, though his throat felt thick. “I’m here now.”

 

Chuck reached over and slapped his hand.

 

“Let’s do this,” he said.

 

—

 

_Initiating Neural Handshake_

 

Chuck, small but so big, deciding to make his mass a force to be reckoned with instead of a target to be mocked. Chuck, called “Fatty Hansen” until the other kids learn to do it only behind his back. Chuck, transforming his fat into muscle, his soft heart into stone.

 

Chuck, losing his mother, hiding from his father, who is a hero and can never be allowed to see Chuck’s tears. Chuck, wearing her wedding ring on a chain around his neck even now.

 

_Left side calibrated_

 

Chuck, watching his dad pilot Lucky Seven, cheering him on like a footie player. Chuck, watching Lucky Seven take the hit Mahiki won’t recover from. Chuck, throwing up in the john while the inhabitants of the Shatterdome bustle all around him. 

 

Chuck, hopelessly in love with Mako Mori. Chuck, being let down easy. Chuck, hating that he can’t hate her, hating that she’s too kind for that, that she still smiles at him, that she’s never put off by his rudeness. Chuck, never rude to Mako Mori.

 

_Right side calibrated_

 

Chuck, practicing his Krav Maga, reading bloody _Gottlieb’s_ articles on the PONS system, coming to visit Lucky Seven once a month, then once a week, then every day. 

 

Chuck, waiting for Herc.

 

_Neural Handshake initiated_

 

_Neural Handshake holding_

 

_Drift complete_

 

—

 

After their first Drift, Herc and Chuck exited Lucky Seven with their arms around each other’s shoulders and the need for words beyond them. Marshall Pentecost met them at Lucky Seven’s feet, straight and tall in his uniform, his particular smile lurking in the corners of his eyes.

 

“Always knew you had it in you,” he said, and shook both their hands in turn. He met Herc’s eyes and tilted his head as if to say, ‘walk with me.’

 

Herc turned to Chuck.

 

“Go on,” Chuck said. And then he smirked, but Herc knew it was for show. “And don’t be such a bloody nance about it.” 

 

_Chuck, facing Mako every day. Chuck, not regretting a thing._

 

Herc nodded. He gave his son a pat on the shoulder before turning and following Stacker in the direction of his office.

 

Herc was still in his Drivesuit and feeling fairly… _exposed_ when Stacker shoved a tumbler into his hand. 

 

“Congratulations,” he said. 

 

“But…rationing,” Herc said, barely containing a stutter. “And… it’s the middle of the day.” 

 

Stacker only shrugged and gave him one of his ghost smiles. 

 

“I trust you can still function with a finger of Jameson in you, Herc,” he said, and Herc attributed the flush he could feel heating his ears to the rush of being in a Jaeger again. He watched Stacker splash the same amount into another tumbler and bring it up to his nose for a deep whiff. The sight of him, eyes closed and lashes a dark fan against his cheek, tugged at the ventricles of Herc’s heart. He took a sip of his drink and let it burn all the way down before he stood as tall as he could and met Stacker’s eyes when he opened them again.

 

“Sir,” he said. He shook himself at the quizzical look a single quirk of Stacker’s brow produced. “Stacker. I want you to know that I’m happy for you.” 

 

Stacker even _frowned_ handsomely, damn him. 

 

“Erm. Thank you? What are you meant to be happy for me about?”

 

Herc ground his teeth together. The endorphins that had blasted him during the Drift were wearing off and nerves were settling in to take their place. He couldn’t believe Stacker was actually going to make him say it. Or maybe Stacker genuinely thought he and Gottlieb were being discreet. How humiliating, then, to have Gottlieb’s stern little face broadcasting every heart in his eye like bloody ABC1. 

 

“I don’t want to pry, sir,” Herc said, “but I do mean to express my well wishes for your new… association with Dr. Gottlieb. I — I wish you all the best.”

 

One eyebrow arced elegantly upward, and though he’d never seen quite that look on Stacker’s face before, Herc was reasonably certain he could label it “amused.”

 

“And just what kind of association am I meant to have with the good doctor, _Ranger_ Hansen?”

 

Herc made a valiant attempt not to scowl.

 

“I never knew you to be deliberately cruel, Stacker. Thank you for the drink, but I have some paperwork that needs tending.” Herc set his tumbler down, but before he could turn tail and scurry back to his own quarters for a good wound-licking, Stacker stepped into his space and rendered him inert by simple proximity. 

 

“Herc, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said. “Please enlighten me before you swan out of here.”

 

Stacker was close enough that Herc could smell him — the regulation soap, a clean, fresh aftershave, the warm undertones of his personal scent. Herc’s heart surged, and he forced himself not to take a step. Forward or back, he didn’t know which he wanted more, but he stayed where he was by the force of his will.

 

“I know about you and Gottlieb, Marshall, and I’m fine with it. Please let me go.”

 

Stacker stepped back, and Herc hated the sudden solitude.

 

“Funny, you don’t seem fine, Ranger.”

 

“I _will_ be fine then, are you happy? Are you done rubbing salt into the wound, sir?”

 

“Don’t ‘sir’ me when you’re playing the jealous boyfriend, Hercules,” Stacker said, voice hard. “It’s amazing — in the space of a minute I’ve learned that I have not one but _two_ boyfriends I was unaware of. I wonder what the protocol is for such flagrant neglect in my relationships — flowers? Chocolates?”

 

It was as if every involuntary function of Herc’s body just stopped. “What?”

 

“I wonder what Dr. Gottlieb’s partner would think of my swooping in on his turf. He might be a formidable enemy — scrappy, not afraid to bite. Best not to chance it.”

 

“Stacker—”

 

Now Stacker faced him full-on, and despite the jokes he did not look amused.

 

“You really think I would do that?” he said. “If I were even interested, and if I even had a chance in hell of prying those two apart, did you really think I’m the kind of person who would? _Jesus_ , Herc.”

 

“But—”

 

“But? But what?”

 

“But the way he looks at you. And — the way you listen to him. And just who the hell is his partner?”

 

Stacker stared at him from beneath furrowed brows and shook his head like Herc was a stranger doing unfathomable things on the metro. 

 

“Who else? Dr. Geiszler. They’re practically married. Don’t tell me you never noticed.”

 

Herc could only blink. His stomach sank even as his ears burned again. Gottlieb and Geiszler? The two people voted most likely to burn down any given Shatterdome with their legendary fights? Herc pointedly did not think of the explosive sex that must be happening between those two. 

 

Stacker sighed. “I suppose it’s not all your fault,” he said. “I should have said something, but I thought we had an understanding. I just wanted to wait until you and Chuck got it together for Lucky Seven.”

 

Herc swallowed past the dryness in his throat. “Why?” he said. He couldn’t manage more.

 

Stacker’s gaze flicked from his drink to Herc’s eyes. Herc’s heart thumped hard against his ribs.

 

“Because I didn’t want you to do it to appease me. It needed to be a decision you’d made for yourself and your kid.”

 

“He’ll need to go to the Jaeger Academy properly.” It would be the first time Herc had ever been apart from him.

 

“So will Mako.” Stacker broke the eye contact to stare into his drink again. He swirled it as if to give his hands something to do. 

 

Herc had no problem wading into the water in a gigantic tin can so he could engage in some hand to hand with an extraterrestrial with genocidal tendencies. But this — this small distance between himself and his commanding officer, the object of his affections, the man he so admired and desired — it seemed insurmountable. It seemed a far greater risk than any he’d ever taken in a Jaeger.

 

He stepped forward anyway. He placed his hands carefully on strong, hard shoulders. Stacker looked up.

 

“I thought we had an understanding too,” Herc said gruffly. “That’s why I was so neurotic when I thought you and Gottlieb…”

 

Stacker’s eyes crinkled, and he set his drink down. He put his hands on Herc’s hips and sent Herc’s heart skipping beats.

 

“Me and Hermann, Herc, really?”

 

“It’s not that weird!”

 

“How is it not weird?”

 

“You’re both leaders, in different ways,” Herc said. “There’s a lot of pressure on you. You have good conversations. He’s attractive, I suppose, if you like that sort of thing, and you…” Herc shrugged helplessly, and this time Stacker’s smile cracked his actual mouth muscles. 

 

“I like Hermann Gottlieb, Herc, I really do. But if he had to spend more than an hour a week with me, he’d be so bored he might deign to listen to Newt’s research logs just for mental stimulation.” Stacker pulled Herc closer, until their hips were flush and their breath mingled. “And if _I_ had to spend more than an hour a week with _him_ , Ranger, my brain would dribble out my ears from the effort it took to understand whatever the hell it is he’s always talking about.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“ _Oh_ ,” Stacker echoed, gently mocking. He leaned in, bumped his nose against Herc’s. When he spoke again, his lips caught against Herc’s and elicited a weak moan from him. “And what about you, Herc? Are we not both leaders with a lot of pressure on us? Do we not have good conversations? Are we not — _attracted_?”

 

“ _Yes_ ,” Herc said. He could feel the way one corner of Stacker’s mouth lifted in a smile just before he caught those lips with his own.

 

Kissing Stacker Pentecost was something Herc had spent a lot of time thinking about. In the moment, though, he found he could think of nothing at all. His whole being was distilled into a slick, liquid electricity, singular and good. He was breath. He was heat. 

 

When he was once again a body — a body keenly aware that it was encased in skintight black fabric that left nothing to the imagination — Herc found himself in a solid embrace, his arms wound around Stacker’s neck and Stacker’s around Herc’s waist. They were breathing hard in tandem, and neither seemed inclined to let go. 

 

“They’ll be all right at the academy,” Stacker said, voice rough. “They’ll be okay without us.”

 

Herc nodded and squeezed him harder.

 

“They’ll look after each other,” he said. He pulled back to give Stacker kiss on each cheek. 

 

“And you and I’ll do our best to return the favor,” Stacker said.

 

Herc tangled their fingers together. He set his forehead against Stacker’s and nodded.

 

“Nothing less,” he said. 

 

**End**


End file.
